Page 33 of Wicked Deeds

At least I wasn’t going to end up on a newsfeed or explaining to Cassandra that she needed to deal with a human freaking out about demons. Maia and I headed toward the two elevators on the opposite side of the lobby. It was all gray and white with touches of gold in the lighting, the planters, and the frame around the currently dark information screen above the reception desk.

The guard must have called the lifts down because the doors opened instantly when we hit the button.

I waited until they closed again, hoping the security guard wasn’t nosy enough to try to listen in to our conversation after I’d already told him to cut the feed. But I kept my voice low just in case. “Alright, if it’s an afrit, we should try and trap it and wait for Cassandra or Callum to get here. It may be helpful if they can see it alive.”

Maia pursed her lips, considering. “It would be safer to fry it.”

“Yes. And we’ll do that if we have to, but there’s only so much Cassandra can tell from a dead one. If we can keep it alive, she can study it and then fry it when she’s ready.”

“Alright,” Maia said, “but that’s only going to work if there’s something up there we can trap it with.” She looked me up and down like the guard had. “You’re not going to be able to move fast in that damned dress.” She reached around behind her backand pulled out a Taser. “I have this. It has a decent range so you can stay out of reach.”

Solid plan. But I didn’t know whether a Taser would stun an afrit or kill it. Or just feed it a bunch of energy it could use to fight us.

“Let’s stick to guns and fire. If we can’t trap it, we shoot it. Or fry it. The first priority is that it doesn’t get away.”

“Fire is safer than the guns. It will draw less attention. Though, worst-case scenario, I have a silencer.”

So did I. But bullets could ricochet and do weird things. I preferred to stick to fire. I doubted there’d be much junk up on the roof. Damon set strict safety standards for all the properties he owned, so I doubted frying an imp would do much damage.

It was only seven floors, but the elevator ride seemed to take forever. By the time we came to a halt, I was tapping my foot impatiently, trying to ignore my speeding pulse. We stepped out and the elevator started to descend again.

The door to the fire stairs was right where the guard had told us. Maia pushed in front of me and opened the door, scanning the stairwell before stepping through the door and doing a more thorough inspection.

“Clear,” she said. She blocked me as I moved to join her. “I go first.”

“Have you ever fought an afrit before?” I asked

She’d been practicing with the training program Damon had developed for me, but I didn’t know what she’d done in real life.

“No,” she said. She lifted her palm and summoned a flame. “But I have the general idea.”

“That’ll do it. So you go first, but you have to let me do what I need to do.” That was the rule with bodyguards. Let them protect you. But when it came to magic, I was stronger than Maia. I’d managed to fry an imp without knowing what I was doing. Butshe was better trained. Not just in witchcraft, but in half a dozen forms of martial arts and self-defense.

Not to mention all of Damon’s security people had stringent training in firearms and other weapons, as well as close combat.

If the afrit was up here and we could get to it, hopefully we should be able to contain it.

And hopefully there was only one—my brain added less helpfully. If there was a whole squad of them, we would need a different plan.

Maia had just reached the landing after the first flight of stairs when I heard the door open behind me.

I readied myself to tell whoever it was to fuck off when Damon stepped through. Which didn’t change my impulse. I held my arms out, blocking his way and scowled. “No. You can’t be here.”

He stood in the doorway, leaned against the partially opened door to hold it in place and folded his arms, matching my scowl. “Clearly I can.”

“Funny. You’re funny. You know what I mean.”

“Yep, and you know I’m not going to sit in a car downstairs while you do this.”

Heartwarming but exasperating. Was that a thing? If it was, he was it. “You don’t come on training sessions with me,” I said.

“No. But that’s different. And you can stand here and argue with me and whatever it was you saw might be gone by the time you get up there or you can accept I have your back.”

Fuck. “Okay, but if it’s anything bigger than an afrit you have to promise me you’ll get out of harm’s way.” We stared at each other for a long moment.

Eventually he nodded. “Okay.”

I didn’t totally believe him but he was right, we were wasting time. And he was a better shot than me. “Let’s go,” I said to Maia.

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